Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut. Just the title lets you know this is going to be a weird one. I went in having absolutely no idea what to expect, but I was still somehow disappointed by this one. I’m going honest and upfront. This isn't very good.
Brought to you from the director of Cutey Honey Universe and a first-time writer, this is an alternate history version of the space race told through the perspective of the Soviet Union. Isn’t that literally just the plot of Royal Space Force? Gainax already did that shit in 1987 during the Cold War. Irina adds one new element to the
...
formula by adding vampires. What do vampires have to do with space exploration? Absolutely nothing. However, Irina wants to preach a message about racism and does so in the most tone deaf, incompetent way possible.
When we first meet the vampire girl Irina, she is being used as a test subject by the Soviets. She has fangs and must sleep in a coffin, so you would think the portrayal of vampires will be somewhat traditional. Instead, we learn that vampires don’t have any magical powers. They don’t attack humans or drink blood. They’re just a hated and oppressed ethnic minority who happen to have fangs and sleep in coffins for no reason. During the Bubonic Plague, vampires were falsely blamed for poisoning wells and were hunted down in pogroms. After that, the vampires lived in isolated communities and over hundreds of years many racial myths and negative stereotypes were created about them. This is seriously the route the anime goes in! They basically just made the vampires a stand-in for Jews. It's not subtle about this at all.
We’re told that vampires are just a harmless minority early on, but the same researcher who tells us this still hates vampires for no reason and is completely ok with killing them in medical experiments. In the world of Irina, the leading Soviet officials and most of their scientists still believe medieval era myths about the vampires for some reason. Myths that any semi-educated person would have stopped believing centuries ago in a world where vampires are real. That would be like in our world if all the Soviet Union’s top scientists in 1960 believed that Jews have horns and that’s why they wear yarmulkes.
Despite showing the space race from the Soviet POV, this anime is Red Dawn levels of anti-Soviet. Every Soviet character besides “nice male MC harem lead” is an evil bastard. They want to use Irina as a guinea pig and make her the first person in space, then kill her and send an ethnic Russian into space. This is not only stupid, but incredibly tasteless and insulting to the first cosmonauts who risked their lives for human progress. Why would you shit on some of the greatest heroes in history?
The answer is simply to tell a monster girl story. Remember Monster Musume and how it tried to have this shoehorned anti-racism message? Only the MC is nice to the monster girls, while everyone else is ridiculously horrible to them. Elfen Lied is also kind of guilty of this admittedly. This would be fine in a purely fictional setting, but Irina goes out of its way to use real historical figures where only 1 letter in their name is changed and directly reference real historical tragedies like the Nedelin Disaster of 1960. It wants the audience to think this is basically a 1:1 retelling of the space race only Soviet minorities have been replaced with monster girls.
This is especially problematic since the CIA ran a propaganda campaign in the 1960s that the Soviets constantly went through cosmonauts like tissue paper and only achieved historic firsts because they cruelly threw away the lives of their explorers. To back this up, an Italian plant produced faked recordings of Soviet cosmonaut death screams that he somehow recorded off a ham radio. These were later found out to be forgeries. It is absolutely true that the Soviets rushed frantically to achieve their goals and covered up 2 high casualty events that were only discovered later, Nedelin being one of these. Unsurprisingly, the Soviets were not purely innocent. However, they didn't constantly go through cosmonauts, which would be highly impractical considering the time and resources required to train them. The Soviets also never put a self-destruct bomb into their landing capsule in order to prevent the Americans from discovering the easiest part of space exploration and kill their own guys in the process. They also didn't use fatal medical experiments on ethnic minorities. On the other hand, NASA was very confident about survival data such as the exact time humans can survive in zero pressure. That's because NASA had some pretty bad dudes working for them such as notorious war criminal Hubertus Strughold. A man whose best friend was executed at Nuremburg for doing the same experiments.
While the Soviet Union did a LOT of bad things during its history, the Soviet space program was one time they were actually the loveable underdogs. They used their own scientists unlike the US, who kissed some a-SS and made a deal with the devil in order to win. The Soviets started from behind and had a small fraction of the money and resources, but miraculously achieved some of the finest feats in the history of engineering. Yet, here we have an anime that wants to repeat propaganda from the Cold War, completely ignore all wrongdoing by NASA, and portray the Soviets as stupid, brutish monsters. All so it can tell a Monster Musume style love story. Fuck this anime.
When it isn't being clumsy and totally pointless propaganda, Irina does have some sweet moments. If you like Monster girl stories, the romance between Irina and Lev is serviceable. There are some sweet scenes here and there like Irina going ice skating where the anime is allowed to be kind of good. The show also makes a last-minute decision to reveal some of the Soviet scientists were good guys and have them rebel against the Kremlin. So, in the last episode, it decided to not character assassinate Sergei Korolev. The source novels aren't actually finished BTW, so this was an anime original ending. Whoever wrote the anime at least made a last-ditch effort and I'll give him credit for that. I even raised my rating by 1 based on the last episode alone.
Sadly, as a space exploration story, Irina really isn't very good. It's not even comparable to an anime like Royal Space Force or Space Brothers. Both of which are excellent. The monster girl romance detracts from the space focus and the series often veers either intentionally or through sheer ignorance into pretty hateful territory with its historical portrayal. As a monster girl story, it also doesn't work because it's weighed down by its need to tastelessly reference real life tragedies like the Nedelin launch failure that killed around 300 people. It's not quite as bad as when the writer of the Sonic comics tried to tell a 1:1 Holocaust parallel with overly sexualized echidnas, but it's pretty tasteless.
So, would I recommend Irina? I'm going to have to go with no. I thought the premise was unusual enough that it had some potential. I don't normally watch seasonals while they air, but Irina hooked me with its bonkers plot alone. As I've covered in this review, the execution leaves much to be desired. It's possible a lot of the problems present in this 12 episode anime aren't quite as bad in the LNs. I've not read them, so I can't say who is to blame for Irina's issues. Unfortunately, this rocket never quite achieves orbit.
Alternative Titles
Synonyms: Moon, Laika, and the Bloodsucking Princess
Japanese: 月とライカと吸血姫
More titlesInformation
Type:
TV
Episodes:
12
Status:
Finished Airing
Aired:
Oct 4, 2021 to Dec 20, 2021
Premiered:
Fall 2021
Broadcast:
Sundays at 01:35 (JST)
Licensors:
Funimation
Studios:
Arvo Animation
Source:
Light novel
Genre:
Fantasy
Duration:
23 min. per ep.
Rating:
PG-13 - Teens 13 or older
Statistics
Ranked:
#27592
2
based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.
Popularity:
#1554
Members:
166,642
Favorites:
786
Available AtResourcesStreaming Platforms | Reviews
Filtered Results: 26 / 30
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Your Feelings Categories Dec 23, 2021
Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut. Just the title lets you know this is going to be a weird one. I went in having absolutely no idea what to expect, but I was still somehow disappointed by this one. I’m going honest and upfront. This isn't very good.
Brought to you from the director of Cutey Honey Universe and a first-time writer, this is an alternate history version of the space race told through the perspective of the Soviet Union. Isn’t that literally just the plot of Royal Space Force? Gainax already did that shit in 1987 during the Cold War. Irina adds one new element to the ... Dec 19, 2021
“The path of a cosmonaut is not an easy, triumphant march to glory, as some people make it out to be. You have to put in a lot of work, a lot of sweat, and have to get to know the meaning not just of joy but also of grief, before being allowed in the spacecraft cabin”
- Yuri Gagarin The Cold War lived between two opposing blocs, the beginning of a space and arms race, the dangers of a possible nuclear war and its end in the early nineties inspired many writers, artists, cartoonists and the media to create different works that sought to explain, ... Dec 19, 2021
Tsuki to Laika to Nosferatu a.k.a Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut is a show that if you'd ask me how can I recommend this series to anyone, I would say this: "Imagine if the actual "Man of the Moon" historical feat never happened with the US of A's Neil Armstrong's iconic "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind." sentence. The Space Race during the Cold War happening between 1955 and 1975 is instead won by the USSR a.k.a the Soviet Union in the same but alternate historical time period, using not just animals but vampires instead." And this is exactly what
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Dec 19, 2021
Communist Dracula.
Flying through space and touching the stars is something everyone dreams of at one point in their lives, but did you dream about having your vampire girlfriend who sometimes wears a muzzle coming along for the ride? Irina: the Vampire Cosmonaut is another anime adaptation of a light novel which I will not sigh at because it is well written, interesting and unique in the light novel space. The space race is one of humanities most interesting events as well as controversial. Through a lightly distorted leans of historical fantasy where the USSR is the Federal Republic of Zirnitra and the USA is the ... Oct 25, 2021
This anime is kinda unique,not everyone can suddenly decided to make something like “how about we make a story about a slavic counry sending A FCKING VAMPIRE TO THE FCKING MOON” that’s something I would never imagine,even when im drunk or something,next why don’t we just make a story about an ogre living in mars.
But jokes aside,they executed the story really well,though the point of the story is sending a vampire to the moon,we also see the struggle behind the mission,the discrimination that our main heroine get is kinda disturbing,we learn from each episode that they consider our MH as nothing more than an animal ... Oct 26, 2021
Well I'll say this. I think that this anime is the dark horse of the season. An anime about the space race is definitely something that I have not heard of before. Add the vampire tag and you have a recipe for a distinctive anime.
Story 8/10: I really like the story for this anime. A race between two enemy nations to get a manned spaceship into orbit. Put this together with the main duo of the series Irina Luminesk and Lev then you have a story about 2 people bonding over their love for space and desire to get to somewhere special to them. Art 7/10: The ... Dec 20, 2021
Recommendation: A cute love story filled with nostalgia and old Soviet aesthetics, it's nothing revolutionary but a very pleasant watch overall.
Story: The Soviet Union analogue USZR is going to be the first to send a person to space, but desperately wants to avoid international embarrassment by having them die in an accident with the world watching. Their solution is to send a vampire prisoner, Test Subject N44 AKA Irina Luminesk, into space first as an experiment, since she is near-human in physiology but considered closer to a dog than a human, so no one will miss her if something goes wrong. Lev Leps, ... Oct 24, 2021
This a show that is taking a bit too much to lay all its cards on the table
but people are losing their patience and hype because of that but yes WEINE CLONE WAIFU IS NICE Now look the entirety of this anime season is pretty wack, a vampire going t space is surely a concept that will pique your interest one way or another , BUT as with all anime this anime can also be easily distinguished with the tropes it plays :- Demi-Human waifu who you wish to proteccc a little bit of racism (cant blame em the already hat black people , they would probably ... Apr 21, 2022
When I read the description of "vampires in space" I knew I had to watch this one. Something so wonderfully stupid just had to be entertaining. On some levels it was, but it really dropped the ball in the second half.
Let's look at our main characters first. Protagonist-kun wants to go to space, and that's where his character development begins and ends. But, and here's the twist, the vampire girl also wants to go to space. Stunning and brave. I really thought they'd be able to come up with more for these characters to do or some more personality traits beyond the bog standard rom-com ... Dec 21, 2021
Welcome to M1c3f's condensed Anime review. I'll be giving you all the necessary information about a show in just a few sentences and a following recommendation.
Today featuring: Tsuki to Laika to Nosferatu (TLN) First and most important to know: TLN's main purpose undoubtedly is meant to be round earth propaganda. The female lead is a cute tsundere vampire. The story plays in a cliche anime version of the USSR. It picks up antisemitism in a metaphorical way. I felt twilight vibes even though I haven't seen any movies or read books about the series which felt awkward. The show being a drama has an ok dramatic ... Dec 20, 2021
It's very rare to see an anime about vampires that has sci-fi elements nowadays. Both genres are like oil and water, genres that aren't supposed to be mixed together.
So after saying all that, is this anime that unique with a rare genres combination? Not really. It's pretty much has the same beats as other 69420 romance anime. What's the point of watching this then? Well, I can at least say that watching this anime won't waste your time. The story is decent but it's unique, like I said before, having sci-fi elements and vampires. But it's mostly a sci-fi anime about the first vampire who goes to ... Dec 26, 2021
The anime is so cute and tired. I like how it treats the space race between the United States and Russia very well. It's a good compilation of history and they put it together with a vampire girl who wants to be an astronaut. I love how they handle the story the main character as you want, you love him, you want everything in life to go well for him. The animation quite well and the soundtrack also the character design is well done. I would have liked it to be more romantic because there are scenes where you say, tell him that you like
...
Oct 25, 2021
I know what you are thinking. Looking at not only the title of the anime, but the description too. Thinking. 'Vampires in space? What?' It's a concept that one may think it's crazy, and might be a random anime that is thrown together, and doesn't connect well with it's audience. But honestly, this show can be more seriously sweet then it seems. That's mainly down to it's main partnering main cast members, that really drive the show forward, and it's sweet of how their relationship is.
Like imagine, being scapegoated, as nothing by a tool by most, seen as such by most. With the idea ... Dec 20, 2021
Going into the Fall 2021 Season, I would have never thought an alternate history fiction about a Soviet Vampire going to space will be my Comfy Anime of the Season, but here I am. In spite of its oppressive setting, or maybe even because of it, Tsuki to Laika has been a light and enjoyable viewing experience.
One thing the show makes it abundantly clear even in the first episode, is that the Vampire/Dhampir are a catch-all for assorted prosecuted races and ethnicities in the Soviet Union/USA. The show being hard historical fiction with relatively accurate depictions of the Soviet Space program came to me as ... Jan 27, 2022
*Spoilers ahead*
This is a show which is rather different than usual. On one hand, at its core, its really not that special. The story is based on real event, except it takes place in an alternate universe/world/reality where the alphabet and names of everything are different, but factually everything is exactly the same as the cold war era. Well, aside vampires (that are also different to normal vampires in most regards). The documentation of soviet cosmonaut training and launch isn't something too exciting, unless you're a space and/or history nut, and isn't handled too well here either, despite the addition of a semi cuudere and ... Dec 20, 2021
Irina the Vampire Cosmonaut is basically a treat for all the history buffs out there who also manage to think of the "what if" scenarios of the pasts, like when the USSR won the space race against the USA.
Here are my Ratings for this show Story is 6/10- Basically established a solid plot but its not bad but its not special either. Art 9/10- Eye Candy to the eyes especially the MOE character design of Irina, Anya and other female characters. Sound 9/10- Want a fictionalized USSR themed OST? you can listen it here and reminisce the past glory of the great USSR! Character 6/10- I'll give ... Jan 2, 2022
What is this anime?
Vampire girl is abducted to be a test-flight experiment to make sure a space flight is safe before humans go into space. MC is her instructor and is cool dude. He tries to get her safely into space and back, while also trying hard to make sure he's the first human in space. Did I enjoy it? It surprised me. From beginning to end it kept me entertained and wondering what would happen next. It's sad that the romance aspect of the show wasn't travelled more, but it is nice as it is. It ends on a good note where, while it could continue, ... Dec 24, 2021
"The Vampire Cosmonaut" has a very high purpose from the moral point of view: a reflection on the importance of equality and the absurdity of the concept of race, creating a parallelism between people considered "inferior" and the vampire species, despised and segregated due to the negative propaganda they suffer from humanity. The purpose has been objectively achieved: during the show we see that our protagonist is abundantly denigrated, so much so that she is considered a simple object on which to experiment, and, subsequently, some merits are recognized, as in any story about episodes of racism. . From a human point of view, however,
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Jan 8, 2022
Story/characters:
The premise to Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut is outlandish and watching this series requires one to suspend their disbelief over the idea of inserting a vampire on an otherwise realistic storyline. Not everyone can achieve such a feat and this premise is bound to turn people off. It was not an issue for me as I have learned anime can get a little wacky and hey! So long as all the craziness is provided right at the start, I am willing to give it a go! If you can overcome that obstacle then you will be surprised at how closely this series follows real events of ... Dec 24, 2021
Sure my review will have some spoilers and I don't know if it'll be helpful for you the reader. I know there'll be a lot better review out there by professional anime watcher and reviewers. I'm only a working guy stressed at work and enjoy watching anime to relieve stress.
Also dont expect me to name the characters, as I loved giving them my own term. I decide to watch this anime adaptation of a light novel series from Gagaga Bunko, and as of now it was licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment for an English release next year, around mid-2022. That made me interest on this series. Story Vampire, and ... |





